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Dad (and Mom) listen up now, this is where my story gets even more amazing. What does a retired elementary teacher do while waiting for her fellow teaching buddy to give in and retire so they can do fun things together during the day? Well, I read, joined a book club, and read some more, then…

You may be aware of the term, The Butterfly Effect, which explains how tiny initial differences may lead to large and unforeseen consequences over a period of time. This is my version of the phenomenon.

My butterfly’s egg was hatched on June 9, 2011 when I downloaded a free book from Amazon called Maid For the Billionaire by Ruth Cardello. After reading and enjoying the book, as I did with a number of authors, I searched for a web site for Ruth and found a blog site named, eBook Experiment, where Ruth had frequent blogs about her journey into authoring romance books. At that time, she had only released her first book, and it was free, so she wasn’t yet making any money with her writing. Well, my little caterpillar devoured reading about her journey and before long the chrysalis was formed.

My butterfly burst forth on August 20, 2011, when Ruth self-published her second book, For Love or Legacy, and I quickly ‘one-clicked’ and downloaded it. Those wings started flapping and unknown at that time, I started my new journey. Ruth had asked her Facebook friends to let her know if they found any mistakes as they read the book. As I was reading I did find a couple of mistakes and I ‘private messaged’ Ruth. Being the sweet person she is, she thanked me and we started a conversation that lasted into the late evening as I read the book and found a few more tiny errors. At one point she joked that maybe I could edit her third book. We laughed… talked teaching (at the time she was on summer break from her kindergarten teaching job)… discussed family…we even discussed having coffee together someday. She said, “And who knows, if this writing thing takes off…maybe I’ll take you up on that coffee.” Serendipity, Ruth!

When the school year started, Ruth went back to teaching, but we still messaged off and on. She asked me to reread her first book and look for mistakes before she submitted it for paper print. I volunteered to reread the second one too to see if I could find anything I had missed the first time through. Her sales were going very well on the second book and I (along with many others I’m sure) encouraged her to quit teaching and write full time so she could get started on her third book. In April 2012, Ruth became a full time writer and our friendship grew as she wrote Bedding the Billionaire, book three. She talked to her colleagues, told them about me, and one or two of them asked if I could help them by proofreading their manuscripts. Feeling a bit under-qualified, I hesitated; after all, my training was in elementary education, with a master in educational curriculum, not an English degree. But with Ruth’s encouragement, I agreed. Ruth convinced me my qualification came from reading as many books as I had and that I had a good eye for finding those pesky little mistakes that so many writers just don’t see in their own writing. Plus, both of us being former teachers, we had practiced daily how to help others make their work better. The good news was, the authors that I helped, thanked me profusely for a job well done! Ruth cemented our friendship right there; we entered the realm of sisterhood!

During this time, my biological sister and I also started a new book group that read only eBooks that were fun and cheap, five dollars or under—The Bargain eBook Book Club. To make our group unique and jovial, I started contacting authors and asking them if they could join in our discussions. To hear those stories, please read through my earlier blogs, but suffice it to say, we have a fun time and we have Skyped with almost twenty different authors, many of them New York Times Best Selling authors! Our best treat was a day in June when Ruth called and told me she didn’t want to Skype, she wanted to actually fly here and meet with the Defiance ladies that were all the talk of her writing world. Her third book, which I had proofed for her just like we laughed about earlier, had just made the New York Times Belling Selling list for eBooks! Well,to add to that surprise, Donna McDonald, another author our book club knew, said she would like to drive up from Kentucky and meet not only us, but Ruth too. And guess what? Yes! I got to have that predestined cup of coffee! The ladies graciously presented a workshop to local writers explaining the hows and whys of self-publishing along with an evening of merriment and friendship with both of my book groups at the local bed and breakfast. Amazing—successful authors coming to Defiance just to meet our little book group!

Meanwhile, my little proofing business was growing and I needed some help. Ruth, who by then I had considered more than a friend (we had bonded…), kept putting my information on her Facebook pages and new authors lined up. In October, my sister joined with me and we are now proofreading/line editing/beta reading for over fifteen romance authors. Did you hear that Dad—your two daughters are working with romance authors! Some of them even want to meet us! They know me! Don’t you love it? And, my retirement plan—it allowed us to purchase tickets to visit my daughters in New Mexico and Seattle. Oh… and I took a trip to see Ruth in Rhode Island in December where she planned a party for me to meet many of the authors I work with, then Ruth and I went to Newport and had lunch with Marie Force. It was rather like coming full circle, although I’d like to think of it more as a spiral, because this butterfly is not nearly finished with her amazing journey. Stay tuned… Texas is next!

If you are wondering what to do with a new phase in your life, I will tell you what I’ve always told my children—find something you love to do and do it! As hokey as it sounds, when a door is closed, a window IS opened. Embrace that window and let in your butterfly! There is a whole new cyber world out there just waiting for your discovery.

Four years ago I lost both my parents within six weeks of each other. We knew Mom was dying, but Dad had a fatal heart attack while playing golf two days before we were going to bring them both back home to care for Mom. There are very few days that I don’t think about them. Dad always teased me about some of the classes I took in college while earning my degree in Elementary Education. His favorite tease—Children’s Literature, or as we called it, Kiddie Lit. He never could understand paying college tuition to read children’s books. However, he and Mom were right there, tears in their eyes, watching me graduate, then again thirty-one years later when I received my master’s degree. His short note from that day still remains on my refrigerator telling me how proud they both were that I had achieved what no one else in our family had, a master’s degree.

My mother was the reading force in our family. I don’t remember a single Christmas that didn’t have a wrapped book for each of us under the tree. You always knew those packages—the small side of empty space where the covers stuck out slightly more than the pages. She spent an entire day each year choosing just the right one for each of us. I thank her for giving me the perfect gift – a love of reading. I hope I have passed it on not only to my own children, but the hundreds of children I taught over 35 years.

A few weeks before Mom died, my sister and I bought our first Kindles so we could read as we sat by her bedside. My old love of books turned into an obsession with eBooks. And what a journey that started! I realized I could amass a huge debt with the famous “one-click’ purchasing power at Amazon, so I started looking for cheap or free books, trolling through many suggestions from Amazon. So many of those choices were romances, thus, my love affair with contemporary romance was born.

On February 1, 2011, I downloaded my first Marie Force book, Love at First Flight, read and loved it, and started following her blog. At that time, she had a weekly book club that discussed chosen books through comments on her blog, but soon thereafter she decided to move the discussions to Facebook. Realizing that famous authors (and in my eyes, anyone who writes amazing stories and sells loads of them is famous) would actually converse through Facebook, I “friended” Marie Force Book Talk. Let me say right now, no one does Facebook as well as Marie Force! Not only does she have her regular author page, she also has the aforementioned book talk site, three general sites for each of her series, and 24 (soon to be 25) individual sites for each one of her books where fans can go and follow discussion questions after that book is released. Plus she chimes in whenever a fan asks a question! Through the past two years, I feel Marie and I have become actual friends, having finally met in person in December, while I was visiting Rhode Island (see Part II of the story).

As much as I value my friendship with Marie, I also owe her for helping me find some wonderful Internet friends. Through MFBT, I started conversing with some of the same fans that chatted on a regular basis. We “friended” each other and started our own little Facebook group where we discuss many best-selling books. Some of these ladies have become more than acquaintances; they are true friends. We “Zoom” every couple weeks, discussing books and getting to know each other. Zooming is like Skype, but you can hear and see multiple friends at a time. Our group lives in Australia, Washington, Florida, and Ohio. We are sometimes joined by Tennessee and New Hampshire. We have started asking some authors to join in our discussions and are meeting amazing women and hearing all about their success stories.

Why all of this as I’m thinking about my parents, you may wonder? Well, both Mom and Dad would be so pleased to hear everything that has happened to me since I’ve retired from teaching. Instead of wondering what I would do with all that free time, I’ve found a way to take what I love and make it into a fun-filled retirement plan. Stay tuned for Part II and my love affair (purely platonic, I promise) with Ruth Cardello and what has happened in my life. Dad, you may have laughed at Kiddie Lit, but…if you could see me now…

Do you love to read series? It seems to be the way of romance books these days, so I have tried to introduce my book group to some authors that write series. One popular bonus with authors and series is they often offer the first book for free or a very low price for you to try them out. Of course they want you to get hooked and buy the rest, and it works for me! I have some great series and authors that I’ve tired that I’d like to introduce to you.

Never Too Late Series, by Donna McDonald There are five books right now in this series with Dating a Cougar being the first free one. These books follow the lives of three more mature girlfriends (early 40s to early 50s) as they find their soul mates. Books four and five deal with one’s daughter and another’s mother. Life doesn’t stop in your 40s, or even your 60s!

The Bluegrass Series, by Kathleen Brooks This is really two series, however the second series (The Bluegrass Brothers) continues with the same cast of characters. These books follow characters from Keeneston, a small town in Kentucky. They all have a mystery to solve, making them more of a romantic suspense, but with plenty of laughs from some of the townspeople. My favorites are the Rose sisters. Bluegrass State of Mind is the first free one. So far there are five books available.

The Fatal Series, by Marie Force There are five books presently in this series. The first one isn’t the free one, but it can’t be missed! Fatal Affair introduces my favorite hero – Nick Cappuano. The interesting thing about this series is that it follows the same couple in every book and you still can’t get enough of Nick and Sam! She is a police detective in Washington DC while Nick starts out as chief of staff for a senator. This is romantic suspense at its best. As their romance and crime solving cases progress, we get to the free book, Fatal Destiny, which was written as a present to all of Marie’s fans. This is the fourth book (really called 3.5) and it is the wedding book, making it well worth the price of the first three! A sixth book is to be released in November.

There are many other series that I’ve enjoyed, some from these same authors. This is just a small spicy sampling of some of my favorites and, the good news—all of these authors are very willing to skype with your book groups too. So, for free, try some of them out and see for yourself! Happy reading!

Today the Bargain eBook Book Club is Skyping with New York Times Best Selling Author, Barbara Freethy. Yes, that’s right – we’re bringing a well-known author right to little old Defiance, Ohio. AND – it’s not the first time! In fact, we have met six authors through the magic of the Internet.

Last year when it was my turn to select a book for my other book club’s monthly meeting, I chose Juliet: a Novel by Anne Fortier. Having read the book when it first came out, I loved the parallel stories of the 14th century tale and present day. Wanting to make the meeting special, I contacted the author for some added information and as we communicated back and forth, it was decided that we would Skype. It was so special to actually discuss the book with the author. What better way to find out where the author’s mind was during her writing process? And Ms. Fortier was a lovely lady to talk to us for almost an hour about her book.

When I started the Bargain eBook Book Club, my goal was to introduce new authors to friends. Last summer, through a stroke of luck, I “met” Ruth Cardello, author of Maid for the Billionaire and For Love or Legacy, on Facebook. Her books were our first discussion books. At that time, our Internet connection was not good, so we only talked on the phone to her. But since, we have discussed, laughed, and questioned four other authors. Marie Force has Skyped with us so many times, she must feel like an honorary citizen of Defiance. Donna McDonald has not only Skyped, but has asked us to help her research older couples for a future book. And Tawna Fenske got up pretty early, wearing a special shirt to discuss her first book, Making Waves.

Who knows what specialties will be with Barbara and us today? I’m just looking forward to “seeing” another great author and finding out some interesting facts on Ryan’s Return. It pays to contact an author and see if they would be willing to Skype. Let the fun begin!

I started out being Karen. I began teaching and became Miss Welker. When I married, I became half of Bob and Karen and teaching turned to Mrs. Lawson. Then I was Mom. We opened a store and I was back to Karen. The store closed and Mom and Mrs. Lawson shared equally. I was MOB and MOG. Finally I became Gamma. Mrs. Lawson retired. Now I am (in order of preference) half of Bob and Karen, Mom, Gamma, and just Karen. Starting to figure out just who Karen is. . . .